


there's all this love if you need it

by strangesmallbard



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, F/F, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 16:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6383716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangesmallbard/pseuds/strangesmallbard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It happens slowly. It does.</p><p>(but maybe all at once, all the time, in the spaces between good and morning, good and night.)</p><p>**</p><p>Emma and Regina throughout the four seasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's all this love if you need it

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't had strong swan queen emotions in a good four months, and what do i do the second they come back. write over five thousand words of fanfiction. anyway, i think i've written an emma-breaks-up-with-hook scene three times now, but maybe the third time's the charm? also i think this takes place after underbrooke, but i'm only vaguely aware of what's happening in the show right now. also robin kind of....does not exist. i could not make him exist. 
> 
> in any case, i hope you all enjoy! and if you've got the time, leave me some words at the bottom. also a special shoutout to rayna, who assisted me as i sent snippets of this fic on skype. 
> 
> (title is from "all this love" by angus and julia stone.)

It happens slowly. It does.

(but maybe all at once, all the time, in the spaces between _good_ and _morning_ , _good_ and _night._ )

**

winter,

After Emma leaves Killian, she considers leaving Storybrooke. It wouldn’t be forever, she reasons, just to get her bearings, walk along once familiar streets in the skin of a once familiar life. She used to be a lot of someones and no-ones, and now she doesn’t know what shape tomorrow will take.

But she doesn’t leave. She finds herself driving to 108 Mifflin Street and ringing the doorbell. Regina answers and Emma is brought back to her last someone, when nervous, confused energy burned in her belly and something like hope burned equally bright in her chest. She didn’t know it was that word, then.

“Emma," she says, not Ms. Swan. “I heard.” Concern curves the end of the consonant, and Regina shifts her weight from one foot to the other. Her hand grasps the door frame, maroon nail polish catching cool porch-lamp light.

Emma wants to say, _I was ready._ Emma wants to say, _I felt hollowed out like a pumpkin during halloween, all my everything somewhere else and I don’t know where._ Emma wants to say, _I’m tired._

She says, “Still have that glass of the best apple cider I've ever tasted?”

(regina’s smile is like sunset along the maine coast; gradual, soft, picture-worthy but you don’t want to spare a moment looking away.)

“Of course.”

**

Emma’s fifth (or sixth or seventh) foster mother was a woman who wore purple, plastic-like lipstick and let Emma play with her eyeshadow.  

She picked up the blue, liking the way it looked like ocean coasts on postcards in bus stations. She caked the stuff on, and it stung her eyes.

 _Oh sweetie._ She had laughed. She had tilted Emma’s cheek side-to-side, her laugh something new and warm. It did not crackle along Emma’s arms and she did not have the urge to hide underneath the nearest bed.

_It looks bad._

She tilted Emma’s face toward the mirror, one of those with the lights all around it. One was burnt out. _Not bad. You look like you._

The blue had smudged underneath her eyes, the residual sparkles dusted her cheeks. Somehow, a dollop had landed on the tip of her nose.

_What?_

She grabbed a napkin, and dipped it in a teacup filled with olive oil. _Like just a girl, having fun. That’s what make up should always be. We’re told to use it to cover up all the little blemishes, but I use it to have fun._

She stared at their reflections in the mirror, Emma’s face shiny red with oil.

_Look at you. A wonderful girl, sparkling. Never look at the mirror and hate the little things that make you that wonderful girl._

**

Emma is in Regina’s guest room bathroom. She is not wearing makeup, and her lips are chapped.

She does not recognize her reflection, but she never really did. The person in the mirror never felt like someone she had picked out for herself, little things and all. She always felt like someone had thrown her a personhood from a leftover pile. That old grey sweater that still smells like sweat.

_Love, you are a wonderful girl._

Sometimes old and new memories like to mix. They like to convolute. They like to stop making sense. Emma is so tired.

A soft knock at the door. “Emma? I have spare pajamas for you.”

Emma takes a rattled breath and opens the door. Regina’s face is cleared of makeup and her hair is just a little mussed. She is holding a tank top and plaid bottoms. She can’t imagine where Regina found them.

“Thanks.”

Regina gives a small smile full of concern. “You’re welcome.” A pause, Emma shifts on her feet. “If you wake up first tomorrow, put the coffee pot on.”

“I will.” She starts. “Where’s Henry?”

“At a friend’s house. Nick.”

Emma wants to see him. She wants to find a someone she recognizes in his gentle smile.

Regina seems to see something flicker in her expression, something she could never find the right words to say, maybe, and reaches out a hand. Emma takes it, with just her fingertips. Their hands waver in between them, familiar and new all together.

**

spring,

Emma is playing video games with Henry. He’s beating her, but that’s okay because he’s her son, and Smash Bros is more her style anyway. Mario Kart makes her dizzy, dizzy, dizzy.

“Ma, how in the world did you miss that banana peel?”

“I was focusing on making that turn without accidentally spinning around, kid.”

Henry rolls his eyes. But he smiles.

Regina comes in the room, wearing her favorite soft blue sweater, and sits down between them. They shift to make room, and Emma sucks in a breath, doesn’t really know why. Maybe it’s the way Regina isn’t all angles around them. maybe it’s the way Emma feels rooted in this den, in this house, in this town, and doesn’t want to run.

“Hey you two," Regina says. She places her hands on her knees with a loud breath. “So, who’s winning?”

“Ma has slipped on like, twelve banana peels.”

“Have you taught her the trick?”

“There’s a _trick?_ Way to be a Judas, Henry.”

Henry looks back at his mother with utter betrayal. _“Mom.”_

Regina laughs, a version of her old laugh that doesn’t sound like sandpaper, and nudges Emma. They’re shoulder to shoulder, lips curved into matching smiles, then matching looks of disapproval at their scowling son.

No, she doesn’t want to run.

**

And then, some days.

Hook calls. A lot. Emma used to take the phone, tell him the usual. _No,_ she’s not coming back. Call 911 if you’re so drunk.

Now, she doesn’t. She lets it ring. She hates the sound of a ringing phone, but she lets it ring. He needs to know.

She’s tossing salad when he calls this time, and Regina is there too, bare-footed, dipping her finger in pasta sauce for a taste-test. She scowls at the phone, and looks at Emma with a question.

Her hands might start shaking. Emma asks, “Is the sauce okay?”

“Almost,” Regina says, reaching for the phone. “Almost.”

She delivers Captain K.J. Hook the most scathing insults that Emma Swan has ever heard. She stares. Regina only pauses to toss in a sprinkle of garlic, never stops stirring the pasta sauce, and Emma never hears a tinny voice from the other side.

(It’s all that unused energy, she thinks, waiting for her when she needs it.)

When she hangs up, she tastes the sauce again. She gives Emma a wink and a raised brow.  “That’s better. It needed a kick.”

Emma snorts.  “I bet.” She looks at the salad, but doesn’t know whether to keep tossing it. She looks back, and Regina is giving her a curious, soft stare.

“Thanks," Emma offers, and the shaking tries to manifest itself in her voice. “For...thanks.”

Regina steps forward like she’s going to say something to Emma. Reach for her. Emma wants her to, but doesn’t move.

She grabs the pot with the finished spaghetti instead. “If he calls again, I’ll invent a new spell to send over the phone.”

Emma laughs.

**

Emma breaks her arm getting Mrs. Muffet’s damn cat down from a tree. She’d laugh, but her arm hurts like absolute hell. It’s the same arm, of course, that she broke when she was ten. That never got set properly. Fuck. Her side hurts too. Fuck.

Mrs. Muffet is horrified and calls an ambulance, but the pain stops linear time from working properly. Emma remembers being lifted into a gurney. She remembers her mother’s face, remembers thinking, _mama._ That unfamiliar word that never leaves her throat.

She remembers wheels turning, the gurney probably. She remembers a poster of pink tulips as she’s whisked through the hospital’s double doors.

And then they must have knocked her out because that’s her last memory when she wakes up in a hospital bed, arm numb, side numb. Her vision comes back in bright, yellow-crested spots. She’s hungry. Does Granny deliver to hospitals? She can feel her toes, they tingle out of numbness, but they’re still cold. There’s a low hum from next to her, fucking annoying, but it would probably be a bad idea to punch her breathing machine.

Breathing machine. Fuck. How bad was that fall?

Then: shouting. lots of shouting. She knows that shout.

“If you even _think–”_ Emma winces, but smiles. “That I won’t be allowed–”

“Madam Mayor, please, you’re not family–”

“Like _hell I’m–”_

Because Whale’s not an idiot, she gets through.

Her hair is askew, from running? Her face has a leftover sneer from the shouting, brows still terrifyingly raised, lips upturned, but when she seems Emma, she takes a visibly shaky breath. Her eyes go over Emma’s arm and settle on her face.

Whale walks in, gives Emma a placating smile, a _please make this go away_ smile, a _please_ _make sure we don’t die_ smile.

“It’s fine, Dr. Whale. I want her to be here.”

Regina looks at him, and then back at her, and Emma can’t tell if it’s in surprise.

As soon as Whale’s gone, she sits at her bedside, and breathes, again. She searches Emma’s face for confirmation that whatever phone call she got was any kind of lie. She wrings her hands together. Emma can't quite believe she's here, that anyone's here, really, but she also can. The _why_ is eluding her, floating just out of grasp. Could be the pain meds. Could be something else entirely.

“Regina–”

“Don’t _ever_ do that again.”

“Okay. I’ll be sure to tell Mrs. Muffet’s cat to never climb a tree again. By the way, I didn’t know that was a real thing that could happen.”

Regina shakes her head and lifts a hand to brush her hair behind her ear. She stares at a spot behind the bed. Emma wants to take that hand. She startles herself by actually doing it. Her thumb rubs her palm, once, and then twice.

“That cat’s been a nuisance for years. I-”

“–will not sue a little old lady. _Regina.”_

“Fine. but–”

“Regina, I’m...going to be alright.”

Regina looks her again, still so stricken, and cups Emma’s cheek. As Emma’s stomach does somersault after somersault, Regina leans down to press a warm kiss on Emma’s forehead.

She sighs. “You’re going to be alright.”

**

summer,

Emma doesn’t remember her eighth grade graduation. She doubt she even went. Emma at thirteen wore giant plaid button-downs, skateboarded to school on a board she stole from her foster brother, and flipped off a teacher once.

(Mr. Hester. Bastard deserved it too.)

Henry is up there in his best suit, now towering over most of his class. She vaguely remembers him saying he used to be the shortest. He’s talking to Nick and a girl in his class, and he’s laughing. Sometimes she looks at Henry and sees Neal. Sometimes, her, a version of her that got more reasons to smile, and often, Regina. Most often, Regina. The same glare, the same way they can inspire an insurmountable strength of feeling. And how they both steal an extra cookie after dinner.

Sometimes, she still thinks of Neverland. The air smells like salt and Peter (fucking) Pan is laughing off in the distance. But not today. She can’t, today.

“Emma,” Regina leans in to whisper. “You’re fidgeting.”

“Sorry.”

“Are you alright?”

Emma blinks back a sudden wave of tears. What the hell. She swallows and catches Regina’s eyes. “I’m alright. Just. I'm so proud of the kid. And worried about highschool. I don’t know how much you know about highschool, but it’s four years of shitty bullshit.”

Regina opens her hand where it rests next to them. Emma takes it, and their fists enclose together. Emma breathes.

“I watched television shows.”

“Even those are glamorized.”

Regina squeezes her hand. The back of Emma’s neck prickles and she looks behind them at a couple, not glaring, but staring quite obviously at them, their hands. She stares back until they look up and away.

(She knows what people think. Started to think. She wants to care in the way highschool Emma might have cared, but--)

“He’ll be fine. More than fine. He’ll be amazing,” Regina says, and Emma hears a sniff. Her eyes look more watery than they did a second ago.

“Yeah. He will be.”

She squeezes Regina’s hand back.

**

Emma runs and Regina jogs. They go to the pier at shitty o’clock because otherwise it’ll get too humid. Emma wears a sports bra and old leggings that have USC written on the side with her beat up nike sneakers. Regina wears a matching jogging suit, her hair tied back in a ponytail. She’s been thinking of cutting it short again.

Emma has to run. She has to run out every nervous, terrifying thought she’s ever had until her legs are jello and her throat is dry. She used to run to music, something with a pulsing beat, old Lady Gaga or dubstep or something, but she doesn’t want to shut out Regina if she calls her.

(god. shit. wait-)

Not that it would matter since Regina, obviously, lags behind her. She’s passed her three times today already. There’s a probably a math equation for this shit.

(some teacher once told emma that she was good at math.)

She had asked Regina, _why jog._  Regina said, _because I like to jog._

Asshole. _But why, instead of running?_ Regina had finished tying her laces into a double-knot and said, _It clears my mind, gets me focused for the day. Running just makes me exhausted._

Regina already wasn’t a morning person, not by nature. She gets it.

She takes a break after her fourth lap at the bench she left her water bottle. She gulps down half of it in thirty seconds. Her legs are buzzing and burning. Sweat covers her face, arms, it’s sliding down her back. She feels terrible. She feels _great_.

After her next gulp, Regina jogs up to her with just a light sheen of sweat on her forehead. “Emma. you’re going to choke.”

Emma takes another gulp. “If I remember correctly, the last thing you said to me was, _don’t forget to drink a lot of water, Ms. Swan. Last time you almost fainted from dehydration.”_

She grabs her own water bottle with a fond roll of her eyes. “Emma. You did almost faint from dehydration.”

“We have magic,” Emma says, wiggling her fingers. “You fixed my arm with it. Isn’t there a re-hydration spell?

“For battle exertion.”

“The battle was four laps around this pier. I fought and I won.”

“ _Mhm_. The conquering, sweaty heroine.” Regina reaches up and wipes at her forehead. Emma bats her hands away with a laugh, but then holds the hand she batted. Regina stares it. Emma lets it go.

“Let me shower so we can meet the kid at Granny’s before he bolts for a friend's house, and we lose him the rest of the day.”

Regina is still staring down. “Emma?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to try jogging with me next time?

Emma searches her face for something. She still, she still doesn’t know what. She wants to take her hand again, step closer, but she doesn’t. She thinks about the burn in her lungs and the sweat chilling across her body. Even in building Maine humid heat, she finds herself cold.

She looks down at the pavement, and then looks up. Regina’s eyes are tinted golden in this just-after sunrise glare.  

“Yeah. Sure. I’d like that. Maybe we can run sometime also?”

“I’d like that too.”

**

Mary-Margaret and David haven’t had a date night in a month, and their babysitter can’t make it, _oh Emma, I promise it will be just this time. I know you and Regina-_

_Me and Regina?_

_-and Henry-_

Oh.

_-Like to do something together on Fridays._

_Of course, mom._

Neal is a year and a half now and has decided that running absolutely everywhere is the most fun thing to do. Now that he has more space to run in Regina’s place, he’s having the time of his little life. Emma is going to die.

So, she lets him run wild in the living room for a while, follows him out of it, and stops him before he runs into the bannister. “Whoa, kiddo.” He shrieks in happiness when she hauls him into her arms. “That’s not a good plan.”

Back when Henry was this age in the life that didn’t happen, but still did in her mind and in her bones, he didn’t use to run like this. Instead, she had an opposite problem. He used to hang onto her for dear life, crying when she left for an instant. Going to work back then felt so awful.

(she wonders how it was with regina. she still wonders how many memories are reconcilable, whether they shared his life after all. they’ve talked about it, but not enough.)

Regina picked Henry up today, and they walk in just seconds after the near disaster.

“Hey,” she says, hiking him up after he reaches out for Regina and then Henry. “Did you guys get my text?”

Regina reaches forward and takes the little guy. He tugs on a strand of her hair, saying, “Regee-Regee-Regee”. Henry ruffles his still baby-soft hair.

Emma feels something sudden and soft curl in her stomach, watching them. She almost wants to throw up, but no, that’s not it. It’s just-

It’s just. “We’ll watch a kids movie tonight.” Regina says, giving him a big, wide smile, and Emma wants to fucking cry. “Just not disney.”

Henry laughs. “Yeah, mom. Dreamworks is where it’s at.”

They all pick Anastasia. So much for Emma not fucking crying. She leans into Regina and the baby, warm and soft and there and. and.

**

autumn,

It’s two in the morning and a shout from down the hall pulls Emma from shitty sleep.

There’s a cry, and Emma. knows. She hears a door open, and footsteps pad closer closer, in front of her door, and then away, down the stairs.

After a fretful two seconds of tossing and turning, she gets up into her slippers and robe, and pads down after her. The kitchen light is on, and Emma steps carefully along the hallway, turns the corner with her hand still on the wall.

Her back is to Emma, but she has a feeling that Regina is making tea. Or hot chocolate.

She turns around and there’s a tea string hanging off the cup, chamomile, Emma knows by the orange color of the paper. She can see the red under her eyes, in her eyes, the still ever so slightly there quiver in her jaw.

“Hey,” Emma says, hand coming off the wall.

“Hey,” she says, just a bit nasal and hoarse. She sniffs. “There’s a few nestle packets, if Henry hasn’t had them all.”

She gives a gentle smile “Thanks.”

There’s two packets left. Regina sits at the island and neither of them say anything as Emma switches the hot water pitcher on. pours hot water over the chocolate powder, and then goes for the whipped cream and cinnamon.

Regina watches, hands cupping her mug. She sits carefully next to her, and offers a sip of her hot chocolate. Regina takes a sip, but no matter how neatly she does it, a small bit of whip hangs onto her upper lip.

Emma wipes it away, and Regina rolls her eyes, gives a half-smile. She looks down and back at her tea, takes a sip of it too.

This is the part Emma doesn’t really know how to do.

She can watch the storms churn around Regina’s eyes, watch her hands tighten over the mug as she remembers, something, something awful, can offer hands or anything else wordless, but. She wants to find the words.

“If...” she clears her throat. “You don’t have to talk about it, but you also can. If you need to.”

Regina looks at her. “Thank you.”

Emma takes a sip of her hot chocolate. Too watery. “You know I used to um, ” Wait, goddamn, she’s never talked about this before. Not in words outside of her head when she’s trying to breath, trying to figure out how again and again. “....sit outside my balcony on nights like this. Brains sure love to remind you of something terrible, don’t they?” Her palms are itching. She thinks about being rooted, unrooted, rooted.

Regina’s brow furrows. “You did that once, when we went to New York. I remember.”

“Yeah.” Emma says. Regina keeps looking at her. “Do you...want to see what’s on tv? Or we can pop in a movie?”

Regina’s gaze flickers up. “Henry.”

“We’ll put it on low and turn on the captions.”

They watch Footloose, of all things, but they don’t really watch. Emma’s not even quite sure of the plot-line, just sees flickering colors and shapes, words that don’t register as words. After the first hour, Regina leans her head on her shoulder, her hair brushing her neck, and Emma holds her.

“I want to talk about it. With you. Just, not right now,” Regina says.

“It's okay,” Emma says, softly.

**

There’s a apparently an Enchanted Forest LGBT Coalition. Emma knows about it, because a woman named Tiana has just told her and Regina.

“It would be amazing for us,” Tiana continues, “To see you two there. You’re both powerful figures in the town, and there’s still other powerful figures who want to silence us.”

Regina is staring. Henry is due from school in twenty minutes. They had been laughing about Regina stealing french fries from Emma’s plate when she has her own in front of her. Oh. _Christ._ Oh.

“We’ll think about it,” Emma says and gives Tiana the most genuine smile she can manage. Because she gets it. She does.

“Yes, we will. Thank you, Tiana,” Regina manages. Her smile has some Madam Mayor, but not enough to be unfriendly.

They talk for a bit more, mayoral business, and Emma tunes out, can't process shit. She hopes she's nodding in the right places. When Tiana leaves, Emma can’t look Regina in the eyes. She doesn’t know what she’ll find there, and she’s frankly terrified that something will behard and old and too familiar.

“People think…?”

“We have a kid, Regina,” Emma says, and hears the edges of fear pulling her voice higher.

“That we do,” Regina says with a smile, but Emma can see something guarded in it. Not unkind, that’s significant, maybe, that Regina didn’t call her a sinner and bolt, but she doesn’t go back to stealing Emma’s fries.

 _It would be just like Emma,_ she hears in someone else’s voice and can’t even place who, _to ruin this too._

**

The town hall Halloween party is in full swing. The punch has already been spiked, and Emma’s Wonder Woman costume hasn’t fallen off once. Successful by any measure.

Not really in the mood to socialize, Emma occupies one of the small orange cloth-covered tables. She watches her parents, Already dancing like grandparents even though they’re only a few biological years older than she is. She watches Ruby and Belle and Mulan and Aurora, happily clustered together, Ruby trying to dance with a drink in her hand unsuccessfully.

Hook is here. She’s kind of trying to forget that. He’s already sulked at her. He’s a pirate, except this time with a fake parrot on his shoulder. They’ve talked now, ended it on the best terms they could manage. He still sulks.

She searches the crowd for Regina, but she’s probably on the opposite side. She tries not to sulk. She reallyreally does not want to socialize. She also is not sure that she wants to see Regina, but that doesn’t stop her from also wanting to see Regina.

“Hey Ma.” It’s Henry, and he dumps a handful of tootsie rolls in front of her. She picks one up, gratefully. He’s dressed like Mulder, and has been swishing his long overcoat all night. She doesn’t have the heart to tell him that Mulder isn’t exactly the definition of dashing, but that’s probably not what the kid is going for, anyway.

 _No one’s going to know who you are._ Henry had grinned. _I’ll just whip out my badge and ask if they’ve seen aliens._ She laughed. _You know, you might get an answer you didn’t really want. I should start up the X Files here. The S Files._

“Awesome party,” He says.

“Yep. Your mom is good at that kind of thing,” She says. “Don’t drink the punch.”

He gives her a raised brow. “So. Why are you and mom being weird right now?

Emma could have done a goddamn spit-take. “What? We’re not being weird.”

“You haven’t talked to her all night. Also, you’re not holding hands anymore.”

Wait. “We held hands?”

He gives her another raised brow. “Ma, she’s upstairs in her office right now. Maybe you guys need to talk.”

God, probably. “I’ve been drinking, Henry.”

He stares at her cup. “It looks like you’ve had one sip.”

She sighs. “Two, actually. Shit, you’re right. Shit, don’t tell your mom that I said shit.”

He reaches into his pockets and procures yet more candy. “My lips are sealed. Here, a ringpop for luck.”

“Thanks, but it was just….I’ll be fine. It was a misunderstanding from earlier this week, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh. Take the ringpop.”

He’s giving her the most serious look of his life. She’s worried that he’s going to pop a vein in his forehead. She takes the ringpop.

“Thanks, kid.”

**

Regina is in her office, making a phone call. When she taps the screen to end the call and sees that Emma is here, she stares and then sighs. A relieved sigh.

“I need a drink.”

Emma expected to be sent away. Scotch is a hell of a lot better.

Regina smiles at her when they get to the couch, and drinks are in their hands, but they don’t take any sips. She reaches out and touches Emma’s cheek, just with her fingertips. And then, like she didn’t realize what she had been doing, she quickly lifts them.

“You...how do you always know when I want to be away, but don’t want to be alone?”

Emma laughs. “Actually, you can thank the kid for this one. I was scared shitless, but he thought we….needed to talk.”

Regina sighs. “We do. But I don’t feel like talking.”

What do you want to do, Emma thinks, but cannot. Think that. Ever.

“You’re-” Emma clears her throat. She thinks about the ringpop still in her fist, squeezes it. “You’re important to me, you know that, right?”

Regina smiles faintly. “Because of Henry.”

“No. Not just Henry.”

Regina’s mouth opens. And then shuts. She wrings her hands together. Emma wants to hold them. Hold her, not let go. God, dangerous thoughts. Emma thinks about someones, being a someone she knows and recognizes, and knows, really knows, that she is a someone here. Even not here, just, _here_ , in this life. She could start shaking.

Regina gets up, suddenly.  “Let’s play cards. Do you know Gin Rummy?”

**

They’re lying on Regina’s bed, reading. it’s raining, storming really, Henry’s gone, and neither of them feel like being in separate rooms.

Regina’s wearing glasses. They fall down the bridge of her nose, and she pushes them back up. Everything about Regina has been infinitely interesting lately. Always has been, if she’s being honest. She hates being honest. She has to be honest.

Jesus, fuck. Regina’s eyes raise to hers, over the book. She smiles, the kind that crinkles at the corner of her eyes.

“Can I kiss you?” Emma says in one breath, because she will never say it again. “I really want to kiss you.”

She lowers her book, and reaches for her. _“Yes,”_ she says and cups her hand around Emma’s cheek and kisses her, strokes it, kisses her again, softly and all at once.

Emma’s hands don’t know when to do until they sink down on the bed, still connected with tentative, searching lips. She’s trembling. It’s a soft trembling, and she feels it surround her heart, encompass it with an energetic warmth, something alive that grasps her sinews and tugs her up and awake. Emma reaches a hand around Regina’s neck, plays with the baby hairs and settles her hand there. Regina lets the kiss go with a smaller one, on the corner of her lips, on her cheek. Behind her ear, and Emma wraps her arms around her waist.

Regina gently sinks into her, head tucking into her neck, breathing, breathing. Emma might be crying. They might both be crying. She laughs. “The kid knows.”

“Of course he does.” Regina presses lips to her neck. “He’s our son.”

They fall asleep together, just like that.

**

winter,

Emma loads Henry’s last item, a bright green sleeping bag, into the trunk. By loads, she means stuffs it in the space between two suitcases. She hopes the bug will move will all the extra shit.

Regina’s there, looking at the packing list, and on her hip. “I really wish I could go with you two.”

Emma shuts the trunk, barely. “We’ll be fine.”

She looks up from the list and reaches out to stroke Emma’s back. “I know you’ll be. I just want to see him off. Send me a picture of him in his cabin?”

Emma reaches out to hold her cheek. “You bet.”

Regina smiles, leans in to give her a firm peck. “I’m getting him an extra blanket. I don’t care what the website says, no cabin is that insulated.”

She takes Emma’s hand, and lets it go as she walks up the steps. Emma watches her go with the knowledge that she’ll come back, with the knowledge that Emma’s car has a place on this driveway, that she has a placemat at the table. Family is a word with many meanings, she thinks. Many everythings, arranged haphazardly, in so many shapes and colors and sizes. She holds all the everythings together, and then lets them fly.

When she and Henry cross the town line, laughing at something he said, loading up their carefully selected road trip tunes, she knows she’ll come back too. She knows.


End file.
